AKA was founded in 1988 and specialized in power control applications for the Glass Industry. The first thyristor power controllers were designed for ALSTOM ® - CEGELEC ® under “Gradathyr” trade mark. The Gradathyr SCR Power Controller was dedicated to the lehr and tin bath heating systems for float glass plants. Thanks to ALSTOM technical and sales offices, around 2000 Gradathyrs have been commissioned worldwide. ALSTOM stopped its float glass division in late 2004. In 2006 AKA released its new generation AKGrad32 which has been marketed directly by AKA up to now.

AKA’s Best-sellers

The AKGrad32 portfolio ranges from 60A to 2500A up to 690VAC at 47- 63Hz. It is 99% compatible with Gradathyr unit for an easy upgrade during cold repair revamping. The 32bits DSP-based AKGrad32 is a powerful SCR power controller integrating:

Two simultaneous fieldbus Modbus Ethernet and Profibus-DP among others,

A closed loop power regulation with 0.1kW accuracy and load failure detection,

A patented “Fast Full Wave” firing mode dedicated to lehr heaters as well as tin bath downstream transformers with 2-Phases control economic circuit,

A standard 3-Phases control circuit for phase angle firing with current limit,

A powerfull power savings algorithm integrated in the firmware to improve the global power factor of up to 30 power controllers connected on a dedicated CAN network in order to reduce power bill by at least 5% annually.

Company Experience

AKA, the global market challenger for thyristor power controllers, supplies off-the-shelf and customized power controllers since 1988:

We currently have over 6000 power controllers operating with customers in 75 countries. All major glass producers have experienced our power control expertise for decades: Saint-Gobain Glass, Guardian industries, AGC Glaverbel, Sisecam, NSG Pilkington, Fuyao Glass, PPG, Taiwan Glass, etc.

In 2010, we commissioned our first AKABOX units for LCD & OLED plants: compact and innovative multizone power controllers for hundreds of 1 to 30kW heaters.

We have experienced all kinds of processes from electrode boosting to SiC heaters and MoSi2: we have transformed these experiences into hardware and software developments to improve start-up, maintenance, energy costs, heaters ageing and in the end glass factory profitability!

Our engineering service is able to configure our products to meet client requirements as well as to design an innovative solution for your process.

We have the highest bank rating.

Core competence

AKA focuses on power control applications for the glass & cement industries. For instance, all major cement plant manufacturers have experienced our LRS motor starters: Lafarge, Weg, Toshiba, TKIS, etc. Our reactive team is dedicated to our clients: no waste of energy, all efforts are concentrated on key power control features. AKA designs original products and focuses on a fast time to market with lower development risks thanks to mature technologies.

AKA’s innovative solutions for the LCD & Automotive Glass Industry

The AKABOX & AKAPWR Multizone power controller optimizes electrical heating systems with hundreds of small heaters ranging from 1 to 30kW up to 690V at 47-63Hz. This powerful processing unit with special algorithm enables you to reduce energy costs. The load management strategy is very easy to use. The user does not need to study manuals or to have learned about synchronization methods. Just start in the “Easy mode”. The power requests of the single loads are just read and written via Modbus-TCP Ethernet & Profibus-DP to the AKABox.

Power savings Technology

The Glass Industry deals with environmental regulations as well as economic and technical constraints. Electrical heating systems integrating SCR power controllers may generate lots of perturbation on the power line as well as high annual energy costs. Our AKA power controllers are supplied with integrated « SYNCHRO » energy saving feature which reduces drastically THD total harmonic distortion, reactive energy consumption, current and power peaks during process and finally improve power factor and reduce your power bill by at least 5% at the same time it enables easy start-up with power supply generator set.

产品

AKA Power Control: a long-term partner of the Glass Industry.

The AKGrad32 SCR Power Controller ranges from 60A to 2500A up to 690VAC at 47 to 63Hz with Profibus and Ethernet. AKA upgrades your Alstom Cegelec Gradathyr with the AKGrad32 control card: cost-effective Cold Repair Solution.

In order to simplify stocks, ordering and maintenance management, the whole range uses a single 32bits-Processor-based powerful electronic Control Card with a single firmware for all applications: tin bath downstream transformer with SiC, lehr heaters, boosting electrodes, etc. The AKGrad32 SCR Power Controller performs a well-balanced regulation of the power of the heaters connected to its Thyristors by switching ON or OFF every half cycle (10ms) of the AC power line according to the setpoint defined by your process up to 0.1kW accuracy.

This patented “real-time Fast Full Wave” firing optimizes the life of the heaters according to the specifications of high quality refractory manufacturers. Kanthal ® specifies Full Wave firing with duty cycle below 100ms for its SiC heaters while AKA’s duty cycle is two times shorter: for instance, the AKGrad32 performs a 60% setpoint with 20ms OFF and 30ms ON.

http://www.aka-automatismes.com/fr/

AKGrad32 Firing Modes

PA firing. 1 or 3 phases controller. Permanent phase angle with current limitation with or without downstream transformer,